Primary
by Thyme In Her Eyes
Summary: In the hour of Hojo's final experiment, the harbinger of his insanity takes a rather unusual form.


Primary

by Thyme In Her Eyes

_Author's Notes_: Another short ficlet, just to get myself back into the habit of writing again! This is a Hojo-centric piece, set towards the end of Disc 2. What inspired it was something I noticed in the game – during the battle with Hojo's first form he seems to be wearing a red tie (which is absent throughout the rest of game prior to this), which gave me the idea for this short fanfic. Enjoy!

PRIMARY

Everyone was staring at it. As Professor Hojo shifted with silent, stifling purpose through the Shinra Headquarters that day, not a single employee failed to notice. The various members of staff were all in a panic, all with far bigger things on their minds – the rumours of another WEAPON near Midgar, preparations made for the Sister Ray, the frenzied scramble to carry out increasingly frantic orders from distant, frightening superiors, and all the stress of being present at the end of days. But still, no matter how occupied and concerned, everyone noticed. It drew them back from confused, overworked panic for a few brief minutes into an almost surreal frame of mind. Each individual forgot their terrors and worries for a moment and wondered with a spluttering awe: _Did I just see that?_

Professor Hojo was wearing a red tie.

An unusual detail in nobody else; but in Hojo it was _phenomenal_, bordering on perverse.It was so innocuous and harmless a picture that it strayed towards a kind of violence in its guiltlessness. After decades of sterile colourlessness, the professor was wearing red. The red of a cheap tie; the kind available at any old clothes store. No self-respecting executive or employee of any status or wealth would wear something as low-class as that. It wasn't even coloured in any special shade – not a rich crimson, deep maroon, or exquisite carmine or vermilion. Nothing as subtle. Just a bright primary red. The red in children's colouring books. The red that explained to young, undeveloped minds what red _was_. Primary. Absolute. It stood out like blood, it screamed like a murder.

Even Scarlet had been startled out of ambition, triumph and self-absorption and had raised a wry eyebrow. General Heidegger had chuckled and made a snorting comment about the worst possible day to worry about personal tidiness, after decades of neglect. At a time when everyone else was anxious, sweaty, stressed and dishevelled, Hojo appeared the opposite. It was enough to make anyone familiar with the Shinra Building stop what they were doing – however urgent – and look, just to be sure. Day after day for year and years, the Shinra staff was used to black shoes, a plain white shirt, grey trousers and a labcoat. The tie was so unusual, so uncharacteristic. Reeve saw, and felt a strange and unexplainable dread knot and gnaw in his stomach. It had to mean something, had to be a harbinger of something – something awful. The red was as glaring and alarming as a warning signal. That flash of brightness, of colour, on such a dour and stringent man, leeched of all spirit and humanity…it was almost _frightening_.

When employees saw the professor shuffle past them, caught the glimpse of red, they felt initially like laughing, before a quiet nervousness settled over them. The change in someone who stubbornly refused change in himself told any wise staff-member that something was wrong, that something was about to _happen_. Even when life was still and placid and commonplace, Hojo was something of a disruptive force and had never been burdened with a good reputation. He was habitually so unpleasant to everyone, familiars and strangers, so full of residual disgust towards other humans, that nobody outside of Shinra's elite relished the idea of working with him, delivering a message to him, or even sharing an elevator with him. But that particular day caused everyone to feel more uneasy around him than ever before, and the populace of the building made an active effort to avoid Hojo like the plague. As though he were infectious. As though all his spores were gathered in that red tie.

It wasn't like the wedding ring. Ever since Hojo had returned with Professor Gast to Midgar and scientific subordinates from a high-security project thirty years ago, not a single colleague, associate or employee of another Shinra Division had noticed the gold band around his finger. Hojo had a talent for obscuring even the obvious. Only Gast acknowledged it, whilst its presence passed everyone else by. Perhaps because their minds couldn't process its existence. To do so would be to venture into a dark and uncomfortable territory, beyond the limits of love. They couldn't imagine Hojo married, couldn't imagine a woman who would want him. It was absurd. Marriage was something for normal people; people with hearts, with lives outside of their work, people untouched by the eccentric scientist's grotesque welter of obsession. And so, the ring hid itself well – its gold was subdued and didn't shine the way every other newlyweds' rings did. It didn't call for attention the way other rings could. There was nothing radiant about it. It didn't sparkle with happiness, pride and the promise of a future, didn't possess the metaphoric glow of the seeming-reflection of a pair of smiles, of two voices laughing together. None of that. It was dull, dead metal bound on a gaunt finger. It was a well-hidden secret. It was something so covered-up and lied about that it had never happened to begin with.

The ring was easy to ignore. The tie was not. The tie was everything the ring was not. The tie was a final step in not having to wash, feed and dress this lean carrion daily. The tie was a final step in forever losing the ring.

As he passed through corridors, sat alone in his laboratory, observed his specimens, took notes, and bent hungrily and fanatically over a heap of files, everyone who chanced to see him noticed. And then, each one tried to guess what had motivated him, why he was wearing that ugly thing. Why he suddenly looked so fearfully wholesome.

_What possessed him?_ Why, when the grand city and central hive of Shinra's power was teetering on the brink of chaos, shop for ties? Whilst staring up at the dark, looming monument of the Sister Ray, _what_ on earth made him look at a run-down clothes store, notice an ordinary red tie on display in the window, and decide to buy and wear it that day? What, as he peered, with unfathomable and violent glee cracking through his coldness, staring at his own reflection in the glass and beyond that a streak of red _went through his mind?_

No-one saw him answer their incessant, pointless questions. Their thoughts were cut by the Diamond WEAPON's attack on Midgar, the near destruction of the Shinra Headquarters and countless other Upper-Plate buildings and residences. Bodies that had passed the professor were charred and motionless, their curious, frightened minds forever silenced. Lives were lost and madness, grief and wild panic fell on Midgar, and everyone forgot about the tie that had disturbed them so much.

In the midst of the ruination of Shinra, Hojo found it all too easy to make his way on to the Mako Cannon. The wind was whining and persistent, the rain light and intermittent, and the scientist was out in the open air, with only the glimmers of electrical light and the hum of machinery for company.

Alone on the Sister Ray, broken and garbled thoughts ranting away inside of him, assessing results and increasing the power outlet with a fury so intense that it had the appearance of perfect calm, he answered every single quizzical look, though no-one saw it. The time for savagely observing the human condition was over. This was the hour for true experimentation. He had long ago ceased communication with the Head of Urban Development and, guessing that Avalanche would be with him shortly, he grimly regarded a needle filled with Jenova cells, potent and powerful with a faceless goddess' legacy, and feeling a smile creep up his barren face, prepared his final masterpiece.

To Hojo, the accessory he was loosening from around his neck was never a tie. It was a tool. It was a vivid red tourniquet. Mechanically; he rolled up the right sleeve of his labcoat, removed the tie, wrapped it tightly around his bare arm, exposed the vein, and, wondering briefly at the contrast between red material and blue flesh, pierced his skin with the needle.

Watching the alien cells dissipate from the needle and colour his throbbing vein, making frail flesh the clay of something magnificent, watching the death of the feeble dregs of his own humanity, watching his body consummate his obsession, he relished every moment that had led him to this point. All questions died. Immortality and anti-life were inextricably bound. Satisfied, focused and mildly sore, he turned again to his task, to his _son_, and ignored the not-so-distant sound of bodies hurriedly ascending the metal stairs which led to his platform. Interlopers, disruptors – trying to interfere with his work. He flung the empty needle away – it was useless, its job done once and for all. But he felt his hands, trembling in anticipation, automatically replace the red tie with some diseased strain of affection for his tool. The tourniquet's job was done.

Starting to feel something deep inside him twist and burn with whispers of transformation, his body hosting its own private Armageddon and being reborn in the aftermath, and a primal new hunger beginning to flood his mind, Hojo felt a moist coldness and chanced to glance at his still-exposed arm. The trickle of blood was a primary red.

FIN


End file.
